Free Will

People think that they have free will because we can make decisions. Every decision we take has a cause. Think about it. You didn't get to decide how your brain works, and you are controlled by your brain in a sense.

If you could travel back in time 10 years, so that you and everything was exactly the way it was 10 years ago, you would make exactly the same choices again. Everything would happen exactly the same. How can something happen differently if everything was exactly the same? We have no free will.

IF you were to travel back in time you would have 10 years extra of experience and memories that could give you a choice. Yes in your argument you could state there is no free will, but that doesn't mean people under control of anything apart from themselves.

It's your brain that gives the final decision. Your brain is the way it is due to your own experiences, it's a weird argument because free will is a weird concept if you look at it to deeply but for all practical purposes I would say we do. An omniscient being may be able to predict what I'd do before I'd do it, but when I decide it feels like I am making the choice.

You absolutely have free will. Assuming that things would play out the same way again, that doesn't strip you of free will, it just means that those are the choices you would make. You have the ability to choose. That, by definition, is free will. You can do whatever you want in this life. Repeating it via time travel doesn't take that away.

"You can do what you will, but in any given moment of your life you can will only one definite thing and absolutely nothing other than that one thing."

"I can do what I will: I can, if I will, give everything I have to the poor and thus become poor myself—if I will! But I cannot will this, because the opposing motives have much too much
power over me for me to be able to. On the other hand, if I had a different character, even to the extent that I were a saint, then I would be able to will it. But then I could not keep from willing it, and hence I would have to do so.

[...]

As little as a ball on a billiard table can move before receiving an impact, so little can a man get up from his chair before being drawn or driven by a motive. But then his getting up is as necessary and inevitable as the rolling of a ball after the impact. And to expect that anyone will do something to which absolutely no interest impels them is the same as to expect that a piece of wood shall move toward me without being pulled by a string."

You absolutely have free will. Assuming that things would play out the same way again, that doesn't strip you of free will, it just means that those are the choices you would make. You have the ability to choose. That, by definition, is free will. You can do whatever you want in this life. Repeating it via time travel doesn't take that away.

We're not being forced to act a certain way or make certain decisions sure. But we are ultimately controlled by nature, or god as some call it. Doesn't sound like free will to me. And most people think of free will as something that allows us to take decisions without being controlled. That is the BS of free will.

Erwin Schrodinger's advances in quantum physics would imply that indeed, we do have free will, quite simply because identical circumstances can render different outcomes on a quantum scale. Before then, it was a quite valid train of thought, which for instance Einstein claimed to have stood behind. We now know the premises for the argument are false, and therefore the conclusion on the basis of them is invalid.

Originally Posted by Boubouille

Trolling will result in the loss of your forum posting privileges, and the removal of your genitals with my teeth while I hum Oasis songs.

We're not being forced to act a certain way or make certain decisions sure. But we are ultimately controlled by nature, or god as some call it. Doesn't sound like free will to me. And most people think of free will as something that allows us to take decisions without being controlled. That is the BS of free will.

Please show me where your nature or god is the decider. Unless you mean nature as in the nature of your mind, at which point you arguing whether a mind and a soul are different things is a completely different topic.

Just because people are predictable doesn't mean they aren't making the choice. The only thing holding you back from making that choice is your own perception. Your perception is indirectly and directly affected by everything around you, but that is near impossible to account for (butterfly effect)

People think that they have free will because we can make decisions. Every decision we take has a cause. Think about it. You didn't get to decide how your brain works, and you are controlled by your brain in a sense.

If you could travel back in time 10 years, so that you and everything was exactly the way it was 10 years ago, you would make exactly the same choices again. Everything would happen exactly the same. How can something happen differently if everything was exactly the same? We have no free will.

This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Your brain doesn't "control" you, your brain IS you. I don't exactly know how to put this in words, but your brain is your conscience, it is what stores all of your memories and feelings, without it you would literally be a piece of dead meat. You made the decision to create this thread.

The bolded part, you said choices. That is a big word there. When it comes to choices there is always a right and a wrong, the person who decides that is you(other people might not see that decision as right). But if that decision was the right one to make for you, at that time, of course you would make it again.

Originally Posted by Torethyr

I thought doing the toothpaste-tube-squeeze and vigorous shake was the "traditional" way.

This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. Your brain doesn't "control" you, your brain IS you. I don't exactly know how to put this in words, but your brain is your conscience, it is what stores all of your memories and feelings, without it you would literally be a piece of dead meat. You made the decision to create this thread.

The bolded part, you said choices. That is a big word there. When it comes to choices there is always a right and a wrong, the person who decides that is you(other people might not see that decision as right). But if that decision was the right one to make for you, at that time, of course you would make it again.

I know. My brain is me. But that just makes me a slave to nature.
If you were to choose between a chocolate and a sandwich, and you pick the sandwich it might be because you had cake earlier. A logical choice. Free will? I don't think so. Everything is logical, we just don't see it.

Erwin Schrodinger's advances in quantum physics would imply that indeed, we do have free will, quite simply because identical circumstances can render different outcomes on a quantum scale. Before then, it was a quite valid train of thought, which for instance Einstein claimed to have stood behind. We now know the premises for the argument are false, and therefore the conclusion on the basis of them is invalid.

That assumes that decisions are actually made on the quantum level. Are they? Also, that wouldn't make our decisions free, it would just make them (slightly) random.

I know. My brain is me. But that just makes me a slave to nature.
If you were to choose between a chocolate and a sandwich, and you pick the sandwich it might be because you had cake earlier. A logical choice. Free will? I don't think so. Everything is logical, we just don't see it.

That choice is itself illogical. The answer to an illogical question is going to be the most logical answer. Asking someone if they want a sandwich (more of an actual meal than some chocolate which is just a treat) of course they're going to choice one over the other. They're not the same thing.

If you offer someone two different brands of choclate and they like them both, which is the logical answer?

Saying that we are slaves to nature is is in itself illogical and also paradoxical. We are part of nature. Nature is not something that can enslave others. It's not a force, nor a being. Nature is every living thing, every breath of wind, every drop in the oceans, every star in the sky. Without nature, life would not exsist and without life, nature would have no meaning. Nature is a meaning that we ourselfs built up in our own minds to hold the world we know and understand together. Nature itself does not exsist. It's purely our own interpretation of how, where and why we live.

People think that they have free will because we can make decisions. Every decision we take has a cause. Think about it. You didn't get to decide how your brain works, and you are controlled by your brain in a sense.

If you could travel back in time 10 years, so that you and everything was exactly the way it was 10 years ago, you would make exactly the same choices again. Everything would happen exactly the same. How can something happen differently if everything was exactly the same? We have no free will.

Not really, while there is a lot of argument about free will or not, the second part is quite bs, our brain is shaped by experience, it would make different choices (unless you didnt learn, or those choices had good results) also you forget the simple factor of curiosity,

I know. My brain is me. But that just makes me a slave to nature.
If you were to choose between a chocolate and a sandwich, and you pick the sandwich it might be because you had cake earlier. A logical choice. Free will? I don't think so. Everything is logical, we just don't see it.

You can kill yourself. That is about as illogical and anti-nature as it gets. The ultimate expression of free will.